Pablo Picasso was 86 years old when he returned for the last time to one of his emblematic characters, La Celestina. He had already painted the famous portrait of the whore, but almost at the end of his days he produced the engravings of the Suite 347. Also on these dates he made an engraving depicting a man and a woman, dated August 13, 1968, measuring 15×20 centimeters, lost forever in a museum.
The work was acquired by the state in 1980 and given to the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art (MEAC), but it was never heard from again. In 1988, the contemporary art collections of this national center were transferred to the Reina Sofía Museum, which became the reference center for Spanish contemporary art and received thousands of works. “There is no proof that it was moved, since there is no entry report,” they explain from the art gallery. There is no record of his departure from the museum where he was located nor of his arrival at his destination. During the transfer of funds, they were lost, misconceived or stolen.
It is not the only work lost, stolen or disappeared in Spanish museums over the centuries. In the historical list – established by elDiario.es through questions from the Transparency Portal of the Prado Museum, the Reina Sofia and the 16 state museums – we can see that the Prado has three unlocated paintings and 20 stolen works , the majority being objects such as cups or glasses stolen from shop windows, all in 1918. Concerning the paintings listed but not found in warehouses, there is a work by Mariano Lanuza which has no longer appeared since 1940, painting Lovers on a fence who was transferred to the Ecole Supérieure de Chant without ever being heard from again, and a Still life of Mariano Lanuza.
But there are more recent thefts and disappearances: for example, the wooden pipe “stolen from room III” of the Sorolla House Museum in Madrid, which disappeared in 1993. Or the more recent theft, in 2018, of an “iron fleur-de-lis”. inserted in a 15th century Gothic sandstone sculpture” from the National Museum of Ceramics, located in Valencia. At the El Greco Museum in Toledo, during a routine inspection in 2005, authorities discovered large pieces of furniture missing, such as a chest, a table, a cabinet and an easel. It is still unclear where they are or who took them.
The Reina Sofía list is one of the largest, partly due to the MEAC’s fund transfer problems, which affected the missing Picasso. In his inventory there are 141 unlocated works. Because they were stolen, because the inventories contain errors or because they were never seized. For example, four works by the painter Antonio López (uncle of the contemporary painter of the same name) or two paintings by Juan Genovés, Perplexity And The monument. Also missing The smoker, by Manuel Valdes.
The latter were lost after being loaned to the Ministry of the Presidency (formerly of the Interior), which accumulated 17 paintings that had disappeared without a precise date. “This is a historic deposit regularized in 1998. During the appraisals carried out in 2005, 2010 and 2011, it was not located,” explain sources from Reina Sofía.
The case of works loaned to diplomatic headquarters, ministries or institutions since the beginning of the 20th century and which have not been returned is repeated: from the four works which traveled to the Berlin embassy in 1931, to the Pérezgil loaned to the Teatro Real in Madrid which was never returned to state funds, like two other paintings which also disappeared in the same auditorium, one by José Alfonso Cuní and the other by Manuel Mingorance.
The head of the Registry of Works, Arantxa Borraz de Pedro, explains that several times the works have been moved without leaving a trace, but now the checks for loans are much more exhaustive: “We visit the place where they are going to be exhibited. , we try to There is one technical visit per year to confirm that the work is in good condition and if the work is moved, authorization must be requested and registration established. During the pandemic, for example, we carried out checks electronically.” Additionally, for a painting to leave the warehouses and head to another location, it must have three favorable reports.
In the 20th century, the plays that arrived in a ministry, a theater or an institution practically did not pass controls (the specific master plan of the Reina Sofía dates from 2010). Could they steal donated and missing artwork from the institutions themselves? “I want to think not,” Borraz replies. Two connoisseurs of the art world and public collections, now retired, agree that during the Franco era (some of the works that disappeared and did not return date from that era), there were no did not have exhaustive inventories and it was a situation conducive to theft. . “If someone wanted to keep him, it wasn’t too much of a problem,” one of them said. The war, the bombings and the chaos it brought to the archives and movement of works also resulted in works of art being destroyed or lost forever, works which still appear in these lists.
Heritage loss has also occurred through chance events, such as the fire at the Permanent Representation of Spain to the EU in Brussels in 2002, where a police officer and a firefighter died, and seven others paintings of Reina Sofía were consumed. Carlos Yárnoz’s column in El País reports the burning of some of them. Works by Juan Genovés, Lucio Muñoz and Manuel Boix have been lost, as evidenced by a letter from the representative in Brussels sent to the director of the Reina Sofía, to which elDiario.es had access, and in which he regrets the destruction of them work due to the fire.
Among the most famous recent disappearances is the four-block sculpture by Richard Serra, created by the artist for the inauguration of the Reina Sofía. The affair was particularly controversial because the work cost more than 200,000 euros and weighed 38 tonnes. Its trace was lost when the museum stored it in a company that eventually went bankrupt. They realized it a decade later and it was an international scandal. The complaint is still operational and is being searched through the lists.
In addition to controls during the transfer of works, museums have implemented more security measures to prevent theft on site, as Mercedes Roldán, deputy director of museums at the Ministry of Culture, states: “In the museums of the network in the state there are 16 museums. – there are private security companies and their own personnel in the room. There is a control center always connected to the police and closed circuit television. They also have an “anti-intrusion” system when the museum is closed, meaning the alarm goes off if there is anyone present inside.
“Regarding loans or deposits, the requirements have been strengthened to guarantee their return. We check that the institution is compliant, that its headquarters has security, environmental conditions, an insurance policy, etc. If the loan is international, a detailed transport itinerary is requested, indicating which people will act as courier, which is the case. called who accompanies the work,” explains the deputy director.
In house museums, like the Cerralbo Museum of Romanticism, the El Greco Museum or the Sorolla Museum, things get complicated: they exhibit small everyday objects that ended up in the visitor’s pockets. Besides Sorolla’s pipe, at the beginning of the century “nine Roman bronze figurines” were stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Madrid while it was open to the public or “seven gold Roman rings stolen from a display case which must have been stolen by force.” “. At the Cerralbo Museum in Madrid, a “gilt bronze wall lamp in the shape of a Pegasus stolen from the office fireplace” was missing in 2005.
“There is an additional risk due to objects located outside the window. At Cerralbo, for example, there are comparative books, such as a graphic plan of the room which indicates where the objects are located. Ultimately, the guards use this map to check that everything is in its place. Transparent wires were also installed that hold the objects to the tables and that the visitor cannot see with the naked eye,” explains Roldán.
Indeed, the majority of thefts date back to the 20th century and there are very few thefts today. One of the most recent and famous took place at the Benlliure Museum in Valencia. In 2010, Sorolla’s small format work was stolen The santero of the brotherhood. It was found a year later and a writer who had picked it up during a visit to the exhibition was arrested. Currently, in addition to the work of the special heritage units of the Police and the Civil Guard, auctions are monitored and follow-up is carried out in case the work leaves the country. In 2021, Interpol launched a downloadable mobile application, ID-Art, which contains a repository with all the works searched for in case a person or art expert comes across a work on display or for sale belonging to a museum since the citizen collaboration is necessary. essential.
Indeed, in 2023, an expert revealed the largest known theft from a museum, at the British Museum in London, when he detected pieces for sale on eBay that could belong to the museum, in what was the largest known security breach in a museum. museum exhibition. The investigation estimated that up to 2,000 small, uncatalogued pieces that were in warehouses could be removed over the years, including gems and jewelry, so no one misses them. This is why inventories and registers are essential: “Before, there were gaps in the archives, with the war many were destroyed. Now museums work with a lot more information,” explains the construction director of Reina Sofía.
“Security experts always say that zero risk does not exist, it is a challenge because you have to make the protection compatible with the works exhibited, but we have improved the systems a lot and now thefts and thefts are exceptional” , concludes the deputy director of museums. , Mercedes Roldan.
